How To Escape From A Devilish Husband (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 3
Young Delphine’s stomach twisted violently, making her feel nauseous.
“You will return to the estate this instant!”
At the sound of her father’s roar—sharp as a whip—Delphine suddenly jolted awake from that strange sensation.
It felt as if the soap bubble that had briefly imprisoned the bleeding boy and herself had just popped with a soft burst.
Delphine looked up at her father, whose face now seemed utterly unfamiliar.
Though he had grown unusually cold toward her of late, he had never once laid a hand on her.
Long ago, he used to call her “Delphra” with such affection.
Now, glaring at her with bloodshot eyes, he looked like a complete stranger.
Which of these two men was her real father? Young Delphine was utterly confused.
From the corner of her vision, she sensed the huddled boy still staring fixedly at her.
“I… I was just…”
“Delphine Pembroke.”
Her father spoke in a low voice.
Dangerous.
Whenever he addressed her like that, it always meant harsh discipline was coming.
But something in that pool of blood held the little girl rooted in place.
Delphine clutched the hem of her silk dress even tighter, hesitating.
“It seems there’s no helping it.”
At her father’s stern words, her face turned pale as she instinctively stepped backward without realizing.
Once she took that first step, the next came astonishingly easily.
Delphine turned on her heel and fled straight out of the stable.
Finally reaching her room on the first floor, she gasped for breath—
And then noticed that her brand-new silk dress remained entirely unstained by mud.
Why?
The fact that not a single speck of dirt marred her dress troubled the girl’s young conscience.
It was proof she had escaped the stable far too easily.
That realization hurt even more than the thought that her father might be a bad man.
Could it be that I’m a bad person too, just like Father? The girl tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
And so, that night,
Delphine quietly slipped out of her room, carrying ointment she’d secretly taken from her nanny.
Would that boy still be in the stable? Or had he been moved to the servants’ quarters?
It was her first time venturing outside alone at night, and her heart pounded wildly.
After running around the estate grounds, Delphine finally found him.
The boy was in the woodshed, where firewood was stored for the winter.
He lay atop a makeshift bed of hay covered with a rough cloth, breathing heavily in a feverish delirium.
Why was he alone here?
She grimaced, guessing her father had hidden him here to keep the servants from learning he’d whipped a slave.
Delphine cautiously approached the boy lying there.
His feverish eyes—calling out for his mother and the Virgin Mary—widened in surprise, then quickly filled with tears.
Even in a place as wretched as this, moonlight still poured in generously.
Delphine watched the boy lying beneath that moonlight, lost in thought.
With moonlight between them, the boy’s brown eyes and the girl’s green eyes gazed at each other for a long while.
[This is the timeline separator]After that day, Delphine often visited the boy.
She applied medicine to his back, wounded by her father’s lashes.
She even gave the slave a surname.
“Pride. How about Pride? It suits your name, Ioan, quite well. Like this.”
Delphine picked up a stick and scratched letters into the dirt.
P. R. Y. D. E.
“See? Only five letters—you can remember it, right?”
Ioan, who couldn’t even read, simply stared at the ground for a long time.
Until the wind blew away every trace of those letters.
…Perhaps, much later, Delphine would think that everything had begun from that moment.
Because what truly made her feel so lonely in that vast mansion wasn’t her cold-hearted father or the servants who turned a blind eye.
It was the memory of her mother calling her “Del,” and her father once affectionately calling her “Delphra.”
She hadn’t yet learned that if one has never known love, one cannot truly feel loneliness.
Nor that once called by a pet name, one can never truly return to how things were before.
[This is the timeline separator]A white bridal veil was placed atop her rich, red hair.
Delphine clutched a bouquet of lily of the valley and walked toward the bishop officiating the ceremony.
‘Perhaps it would have been better to die with Father.’
She’d thought that while locked in the cold dungeon, but hadn’t even been given proper time to grieve.
In truth, she barely remembered the past two days—she’d been half-delirious the entire time.
Her father had died before her eyes, and her noble house had fallen in an instant.
Had she remained fully conscious through such upheaval, she might not have endured it.
Could all of this actually just be a dream?
Still confused, Delphine walked down the carpeted aisle.
Behind her, like the trailing hem of her wedding dress, the guests’ murmurs followed.
“To dare commit treason in this empire… Normally, they’d execute three generations. How did that girl survive?”
“I heard Lord Pride personally begged His Majesty for her life.”
“Does that mean he holds such influence?”
“Still, to marry the day after your father’s execution… Tsk tsk.”
The red peony of the Astraks Empire. The pride of House Pembroke.
Now, she had become the empire’s most pitiful woman.
Delphine reached the altar, gripping her bouquet tightly with sweat-dampened hands.
Her face hidden behind the opaque veil, she couldn’t clearly see the man standing before her.
But that dirty-blond hair, that silhouette… everything felt far too familiar.
Could he truly be Ioan?
Three years ago, Ioan had escaped from the mansion and vanished. The empire showed no mercy to runaway slaves.
‘I was certain he must be dead.’
And if he really were Ioan, he would never treat her this way.
He had always been like an obedient dog—no, even more loyal to her than a dog.
“My lady, you’re a saint to me.”
He’d fret endlessly, afraid even the hem of her dress might brush against him, never daring to meet her eyes.
He once stammered that he feared his filth might taint her if he stared too long.
Someone like him would never vanish without a word, then suddenly reappear to slit her father’s throat.
Through the hazy veil, she saw the man extend a hand clad in a white glove.
Delphine hesitated for a moment.
But for the daughter of a traitor, was there any choice other than taking that hand?
Amidst all the chaos, one thing alone was certain.
‘I… don’t want to die yet…’
Delphine placed her trembling hand onto the unknown man’s.
[This is the timeline separator]“…Am I going mad? Or have I been bewitched by a fox?”
I thought that man was a dog—but was he actually a fox?
Delphine muttered bitterly beneath her snow-white bridal veil.
Though surrounded by nobles, it wasn’t hard to spot the man whose head stood a full head taller than the rest.
Elegantly holding a glass of champagne in one hand, the other clasped behind his back, he displayed flawless manners throughout the entire wedding reception.
While he moved freely through the celebration, Delphine sat quietly in the bride’s seat, veiled and still.
Not a single noble approached the bride who’d exchanged mourning clothes for a wedding gown.
Thanks to that, Delphine had time to better understand the man she’d just married.
Ioan Pride, Marquess Pride.
Captain of the Emperor’s personal guard—the very center of power in this empire.
A hero of the empire.
…And a man who looked exactly like the slave boy from long ago.
They said he’d crushed a rebellion near the capital’s walls about a year ago and instantly rose to become the Emperor’s right hand.
“A year ago,” they said?
That was news to her.
Delphine had always been at the heart of high society—she couldn’t possibly have missed such a story.
Yet everyone here spoke of him as if his presence were perfectly ordinary.
It felt as if the whole world had gone mad.
No, that couldn’t be… Could it be that she herself was the one losing her mind?
Delphine narrowed her eyes, watching the man standing calmly with a champagne flute in hand.
“So, tell me, Marquess Pride—where exactly were you hiding until a year ago?”
A lady in a pink frilled dress batted her eyelashes coyly as she asked.
“You’re not even an alumnus of the Imperial Military Academy.”
“I heard you hail from some provincial noble family. Yet your manners are superb! Ha ha.”
Added a mustachioed man, one hand tucked behind his back.
The central nobles—who lived in District 1, the heart of the capital—held a quiet pride of their own.
Their words meant: *For a country bumpkin, you clean up rather well.* But would he even understand the slight?
Delphine narrowed her eyes further, watching for his reaction.
“As you know, the records of the Emperor’s guards are confidential.”
He replied smoothly,
While subtly stroking the imperial seal engraved on the hilt of the sword at his left side.
“His Majesty dislikes seeing the details of the blade that protects him become gossip for idle courtiers.”
“Ah—ahem! Of course His Majesty would feel that way! Ha ha.”
“Given the estate in the capital as reward for your recent victory… you’re now a proper central noble! Ho ho!”
The man offered an elegant smile to the nobles flattering him.
Delphine stared at him as if seeing a ghost.
“…Has a real fox taken human form?”
Elegance? Manners? Nobility?
If you asked what Ioan could never possess, those would be the very things.
Among all the household servants, he’d been the fiercest and most untamed.
More like an unbroken wolf than a dog.
A raw, savage boy—like a wild beast.
So ferocious that, at times, even the butler Wilson began avoiding him out of fear.
He’d only ever been docile in front of her.
Only Delphine could control him.
That dog-like slave.
Just then, the man—who’d been wearing a nobleman’s graceful smile—suddenly turned his head toward Delphine.
Their eyes met across the veil.
Male lead says he’s pregnant — and it’s female lead’s child
Something seems a bit off about this world.
Wang Zhao thought as she watched a pregnant man walking towards her…
Intro
Female lead finds herself in a world where the men who possess the ability to bear children.
As she navigates this unfamiliar reality, she is caught off guard by the sudden appearance of her boyfriend, who reveals that he is pregnant.
Is this truly her boyfriend?
Why can’t she recall any details about their time together?
She begins to doubt whether the child her boyfriend is carrying is even hers.
Is there a hidden reason behind her amnesia, or could it be a side effect of her sudden arrival in this strange new world?
Just when it seems the protagonist’s life couldn’t become any more entangled, her ex-boyfriend makes an unexpected appearance, raising questions about the protagonist’s past.
__________
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